A Nazi hunter is an individual who tracks down and gathers information on alleged former

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s, or SS members, and Nazi collaborators who were involved in

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

, typically for use at trial on charges of war crimes and

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

. Prominent Nazi hunters include

Simon Wiesenthal Simon Wiesenthal (31 December 190820 September 2005) was a history of the Jews in Austria, Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor, Nazi hunter, and writer. He studied architecture and was living in Lwów at the outbreak of World War II. He surviv ...

Tuviah Friedman __NOTOC__ Tuviah Friedman (23 January 1922 – 13 January 2011) was a Nazi hunter and director of the Institute for the Documentation of Nazism, Nazi War Crimes in Haifa, Israel. Friedman was born in Radom, Poland, in 1922. During World War II he ...

Serge Klarsfeld Serge Klarsfeld (born 17 September 1935) is a Romanian-born French activist and Nazi hunter known for documenting the Holocaust in order to establish the record and to enable the prosecution of war criminals. Since the 1960s, he has made notab ...

Beate Klarsfeld Beate Auguste Klarsfeld (née Künzel; born 13 February 1939) is a Franco-German journalist and Nazi hunter who, along with her French husband, Serge, became famous for their investigation and documentation of numerous Nazi war criminals, inc ...

Ian Sayer Ian K. T. Sayer (born 30 October 1945) is a British entrepreneur, World War II historian, author and investigative journalist. His Sayer Transport Group (established in 1967 and sold in 1979) became part of the British and European overnight do ...

Yaron Svoray Yaron Svoray ( he, ירון סבוראי) is an Israeli former police detective, author, and lecturer, most notable for his work against Neo-Nazis. Svoray infiltrated German Neo-Nazi groups, contributed to the arrest of Nazi war criminal Erich Pri ...

Elliot Welles Elliot Welles (birth name Kurt Sauerquell; 18 September 1927 – 28 November 2006) was a Holocaust survivor who for more than two decades until his retirement in 2003, directed the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League's task force on Nazi war crimin ...

, and

Efraim Zuroff Efraim Zuroff ( he, אפרים זורוף; born August 5, 1948) is an American-born Israeli historian and Nazi hunter who has played a key role in bringing indicted Nazi and fascist war criminals to trial. Zuroff, the director of the Simon Wiese ...

History

With the onset of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, both the Western Allies and the USSR sought out former Nazi scientists and operatives for programs such as

Operation Paperclip Operation Paperclip was a secret United States intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from the former Nazi Germany to the U.S. for government employment after the end of World War ...

. Cooperative former Nazis, such as

Wernher von Braun Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...

and

Reinhard Gehlen Reinhard Gehlen (3 April 1902 – 8 June 1979) was a German lieutenant-general and intelligence officer. He was chief of the Wehrmacht Foreign Armies East military intelligence service on the eastern front during World War II, spymaster of the ...

, were occasionally given state protection in return for valuable information or services. At the time, Gehlen had been chief of the German

Federal Intelligence Service The Federal Intelligence Service (German: ; , BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin and is the world's largest intelligence head ...

or ''Bundesnachrichtendienst'' (federal intelligence agency), founder of the Gehlen Org, "a true life version of

ODESSA Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...

" network, which helped exfiltrate Nazis from Europe. Other Nazis used

ratlines Ratlines () are lengths of thin line tied between the shrouds of a sailing ship to form a ladder. Found on all square-rigged ships, whose crews must go aloft to stow the square sails, they also appear on larger fore-and-aft rigged vessels t ...

to escape post-war Europe to places such as South America. In response, Nazi hunters sought out fugitives on their own or formed groups, such as the

Simon Wiesenthal Center The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance educat ...

. Methods used by Nazi hunters include offering rewards for information, reviewing immigration and military records, and launching civil lawsuits. In later decades, Nazi hunters found greater cooperation with Western and South American governments and the state of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. By the end of the 20th century, pursuit of former Nazis declined, because most of the generation active in Nazi leadership had died.

Notable targets

The Simon Wiesenthal Center publishes an annual report on

Nazi war criminals The following is a list of people who were formally indicted for committing war crimes on behalf of the Axis powers during World War II, including those who were acquitted or never received judgment. It does not include people who may have commi ...

. Some notable targets of Nazis hunters have included: *

Klaus Barbie Nikolaus "Klaus" Barbie (25 October 1913 – 25 September 1991) was a German operative of the SS and SD who worked in Vichy France during World War II. He became known as the "Butcher of Lyon" for having personally tortured prisoners—primar ...

, the "Butcher of Lyon", was extradited from

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

to France in 1983, after earlier attempts by

Serge Serge may refer to: *Serge (fabric), a type of twill fabric *Serge (llama) (born 2005), a llama in the Cirque Franco-Italien and internet meme *Serge (name), a masculine given name (includes a list of people with this name) *Serge (post), a hitchi ...

and

to track him. Until Bolivia's transition to democracy, he had been protected by the US and German intelligence services for anti-Soviet intelligence purposes, and employed by the Bolivian army under an alias. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987, he died in 1991. *

Herberts Cukurs Herberts Cukurs (17 May 1900 – 23 February 1965) was a Latvian aviator and deputy commander of the Arajs Kommando, which carried out the largest mass murders of Latvian Jews in the Holocaust. Although Cukurs never stood trial, multiple Holocau ...

, the "Butcher of Riga", was assassinated by Mossad agents in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1965. *

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ,"Eichmann"
''

captured and smuggled from

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

in 1960 by the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, and was

tried In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, ...

, where he was executed in 1962. * Boļeslavs Maikovskis, a Latvian Nazi collaborator, was pursued to

Mineola, New York Mineola is a village in and the county seat of Nassau County, on Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 18,799 at the 2010 census. The name is derived from an Algonquin Chief, Miniolagamika, which means "pleasant village". ...

by Welles. Maikovskis eventually emigrated to West Germany in 1987, where he was found unfit to stand trial due to age. *

Josef Mengele , allegiance = , branch = Schutzstaffel , serviceyears = 1938–1945 , rank = '' SS''-'' Hauptsturmführer'' (Captain) , servicenumber = , battles = , unit = , awards = , commands = , ...

, the "Angel of Death", was sought in various South American countries by Mossad, Wiesenthal, and the Klarsfelds. He evaded capture until his accidental death in Brazil in 1979; his remains were identified in 1985. *

Erich Priebke Erich Priebke (29 July 1913 – 11 October 2013) was a German mid-level SS commander in the SS police force (SiPo) of Nazi Germany. In 1996, he was convicted of war crimes in Italy, for commanding the unit which was responsible for the Ar ...

, an SS officer responsible for the mass murder of Italian civilians, was interviewed openly in Argentina in 1994, by

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

'' Primetime Live'' host

Sam Donaldson Samuel Andrew Donaldson Jr. (born March 11, 1934) is an American former reporter and news anchor, serving with ABC News from 1967 to 2009. He is best known as the network's White House Correspondent (1977–1989 and 1998–99) and as a panelist ...

. He was subsequently extradited to Italy and, in 1998, sentenced to house arrest for life. *

Eduard Roschmann Eduard Roschmann (25 November 1908 – 8 August 1977) was an Austrian Nazi SS-''Obersturmführer'' and commandant of the Riga Ghetto during 1943. He was responsible for numerous murders and other atrocities. As a result of a fictionalized port ...

was sought by Wiesenthal in Argentina. The Argentine government made plans for his extradition public in 1977, allowing him to escape to Paraguay. He apparently died the same year, but Wiesenthal was skeptical that the body was Roschmann's. *

Dinko Šakić Dinko Šakić (8 September 1921 – 20 July 2008) was a Croatian Ustaše official who commanded the Jasenovac concentration camp in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) from April to November 1944, during World War II. Born in the villag ...

was pursued to Argentina by Zuroff. Making no attempt to hide, he made several media appearances before being extradited to Croatia in 1998, where he was sentenced to 20 years, and died in 2008. *

Josef Schwammberger Josef Franz Leo Schwammberger (14 February 1912 – 3 December 2004) was a member of the SS ('' Schutzstaffel'') during the Nazi era. Biography During the Second World War, Schwammberger was a commander of various SS Arbeitslager (forced-labor c ...

was traced to Argentina by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Welles. Extradited to West Germany in 1990, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992 and died in prison in 2004. *

Franz Stangl Franz Paul Stangl (; 26 March 1908 – 28 June 1971) was an Austrian-born police officer and commandant of the Nazi extermination camps Sobibor and Treblinka. Stangl, an employee of the T-4 Euthanasia Program and an SS commander in Nazi German ...

, the commandant of the

Sobibór Sobibor (, Polish: ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of German-occupied Poland. As ...

and

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The cam ...

extermination camps, was caught by Wiesenthal in São Paulo in 1967. He was extradited to Germany in 1970 and sentenced to life in prison, where he died the following year. *

Gustav Wagner Gustav Franz Wagner (18 July 1911 – 3 October 1980) was an Austrian member of the ''Schutzstaffel, SS'' with the rank of Staff sergeant (''Oberscharführer''). Wagner was a deputy commander of Sobibor extermination camp in General Government, Ge ...

, the "Wolf", was exposed by Wiesenthal in Brazil in 1978. He was arrested, but Brazil refused to extradite him to West Germany. Wagner was found dead in an alleged suicide in São Paulo in 1980.

References

{{reflist Holocaust trials *

History

Notable targets

See also

References